Christian Living
How often have you heard people say that if we get rid of any doubt and just completely trust God, He will give us what we ask for when we pray? Have you heard people claim God’s answer to their prayer and thank Him for doing what they ask while they are praying? Just what is the connection between faith, belief and having our prayers answered?
I have been told on many occasions that the reason I don’t see many healings and other miracles is because I don’t believe hard enough, that I have too many doubts to let God work. Similarly I have heard sermons preached that teach that using the words “Lord, if it is your will…” in a prayer means that we doubt God’s desire to do what we ask and so our prayers will go unanswered. People quote the verses “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer” (Mat 21:22) and “truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (Mat 17:20-21) to show that the only barrier to having all our prayers answered is our lack of faith and lack of believing. But is this true? If I could have more faith and more belief does it mean that my prayers are guaranteed?
To try and understand these ideas better, let’s start by supposing that the answer to my last question is “yes”. Imagine that we have faith the size of an orange, not a mustard seed, and a depth of belief that would put the apostle Paul to shame. In fact we have so much faith and belief that God does whatever we ask for. Commonly we pray for healing in our churches. This makes a lot of sense as we know that disease and death are the result of sin in the world and we know that Jesus healed people. So we want to show God’s compassion for His world and be like Jesus. Now our prayers for healing are all answered. In fact every person that we pray for is healed. Sickness is eliminated from our fellowship. But now we have a problem. Through our prayers we are able to stop people dying from sickness and if we pray for physical protection as well, we stop anyone from dying at all! Our prayers can bring about eternal life without the need for Jesus.
Continuing this scenario, we now have another problem. Anyone we pray for will be cured of illness and won’t come to any harm. But what if we are asked to pray for someone who we think is ungodly? What if a local politician who does not believe in God and supports all types of ungodly legislation falls fatally ill and we are asked to pray for them? We know that if we pray they will recover. If we don’t pray they will die. It is our decision whether to pray for them or not. Suddenly we have to start making judgements. Who is worthy of being healed and who isn’t? Who is worthy of life and who should be allowed to die? Now we become judges of the people around us. Not only do we have the power to give unlimited life, but we have also become judges of the world. God has lost His role as judge over people, that job is now ours.
Imagine then, that we also ask for world peace. We ask God to stop all wars and make everyone live in peace with each other. Surely this is a Godly prayer! Yet it is out of horrible situations such as the concentration camps of World War 2 that we see the amazing testimonies of people such as Corrie Ten Boom. The bible also tells us that the end times will see wars and rumours of war. In addition it says that God’s people are to consider themselves blessed when they are being persecuted for their faith. Yet our prayers mean that war no longer occurs and persecutions are a thing of the past. Now it is our will that is being implemented and not God’s.
Clearly faith and belief are not the only issues determining how our prayers are answered. While we can debate whether anyone can have that much faith anyway, the larger question is one of wisdom. There is no one that has the wisdom and knowledge of God. God is the God of infinite wisdom and knowledge; we are only poor and blind human beings. To expect God to do whatever we ask is to usurp the King. “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
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